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Mission Statement

As part of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Eye Institute’s mission is to “conduct and support research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect to blinding eye diseases, visual disorders, mechanisms of visual function, preservation of sight, and the special health problems and requirements of the blind.”

In 2001, a consensus meeting was convened by the National Eye Institute at which many of the world's leading ophthalmic epidemiologists created standard case definitions for the eye conditions included in this report. Data was obtained from a review of the major epidemiological studies with the cooperation of their authors. Age, race and sex-specific prevalence rates were then combined using a meta-analysis technique for reducing the overall variance of the pooled rate. Appropriate logistic regression models were fit to the age, race and sex-specific pooled prevalence rates. In the initial report, these rates were applied to the 2000 U.S. Census population. In collaboration with Prevent Blindness America, the prevalence rates have now been applied to the 2010 U.S. Census population.

2012 Vision Problems in the U.S.The Vision Problems in the U.S. report and searchable database provides prevalence estimates of adult vision impairment and age-related eye diseases in America. Both national and state data are available.